Lloyd Polkinghorne, The Koondrook and Barham Bridge Newspaper

Visitors and locals were thrilled with the offerings at the Border Flywheelers Club and Heritage Museum 24th Vintage Engine and Machinery Rally. “You could spend weeks in there,” was a repeated comment from visitors. The shear volume and variety of local history that has been amassed is a credit to everyone involved.

A recent Koondrook Development Committee meeting included discussions surrounding the Victorian Government decision to close down native timber harvesting in the remaining red gum state forest within the Gannawarra Shire. The forests includes Gunbower, Guttrum and Benwell State Forests. The importance of the red gum industry to the Koondrook community and the Gannawarra Shire was acknowledged by the attendants at the meeting.

Sophie Baldwin, SRI. The recent disallowance of Water Minister, Melinda Pavey’s floodplain harvesting regulations has been welcomed by Southern Riverina Irrigators and Southern Connected Basin Communities. While we support licensing and metering of a process that has been allowed to grow unchecked for 27 years, the regulations in their current form did little to protect southern basin communities – communities already hit hard by the implementation of the Basin Plan and poor water policy.

Last week Deniliquin hosted a Federal Senate Committee on The Multi-Jurisdictional Management And Execution Of The Murray-Darling Basin Plan. In layman’s terms, the Australian Federal Government is considering taking over all things water, essentially excluding the states from decision making.

Kirstin Nicholson. “I have a special interest in the work that’s gone on in Victorian health, particularly around the ‘Safer Care Victoria’, and I think that’s moving all of us in a much better and safer direction. Also, I like that the governing bodies are really local. They know their patients, they know their people and they know the community needs. And then they hold us to account to deliver it," Bernadette Loughnane, the new CEO of Cohuna District Hospital.

Kirstin Nicholson. A sketch of the Koondrook township has been gifted to the Barham Koondrook Historical Society (BKHS). The sketch, a pen line drawing by renowned Australian artist, Kenneth Jack, was presented to the society by Ken Guskich on Wednesday, May 5 ... The artist, Kenneth Jack, was born in 1924 and spent his life painting, drawing and exhibiting across Australia and around the world.

Kirstin Nicholson. Cohuna business, AWMA, opened its doors to the public last month providing an insight into what the business does ... Fish exclusion screens, penstocks, water control gates and trash screens are just some of AWMA’s products, each of which, is unique. Each is designed, engineered and manufactured specifically for the customer, the site, and for each application, in-house, in the industrial estate right here in Cohuna.